


Unspoken

by EHyde



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil is Inhuman, M/M, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:56:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EHyde/pseuds/EHyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Voice of Night Vale is just a job title, right? When everyone in town loses the ability to speak, Carlos realizes that it might actually be more literal than that ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unspoken

There’s a pattern to Night Vale’s weirdness, a way the locals have of dealing with it. Some unspeakable horror would strike the town, and if you weren’t directly affected, you’d pretend it wasn’t there. Because something else would happen to _you_ eventually, and if you spent all your time in a state of terror, you’d have no time left to live. The few people in town who _could_ deal with whatever was going on that day—sometimes Carlos was one of them—would do their thing, and in the evening, Cecil’s voice would come across the airwaves, explaining what had happened, explaining that the danger had passed. It was that voice that kept the town together, Carlos thought, that voice that would say, yes, horrible things have happened, but we are still here, and they are not. The one time that voice had broken down on air—the one time that voice couldn’t reassure Night Vale that everything would be all right—that was when Carlos finally knew how much he really meant to Cecil, and how much Cecil meant to him.

Carlos doesn’t consciously think about this on a day-to-day basis, of course. He works on the problem in front of him. And on today’s crisis, he’s gotten nowhere. It had begun with a shared nightmare—a creepy little girl holding some mystical object, pretty standard as far as shared nightmares went—which usually made things easier, but, well, they’d only realized it was actually a _shared_ nightmare about an hour ago, and hadn’t managed to translate it into anything useful yet.

Cecil’s voice on the radio is such a given that hearing it tonight doesn’t initially strike Carlos as odd. Not until a couple of minutes in, when he realizes that the broadcast has been entirely made up of pre-recorded advertisements. He looks at his new assistant, and she meets his gaze, wide-eyed. She’s realized it, too. She points to the door, but Carlos is already turning in that direction, breaking into a run as he exits his lab and rushes to the radio station.

The new station intern—Sam, he thinks she’s called—actually _hugs_ him as he bursts through the door, then points, wordlessly, to the recording studio. Carlos takes a deep breath, tries to calm himself, then moves to open the studio door. He pauses, turning back to the intern, and tries to motion that he’d like a pen and paper, but she frowns and shakes her head.

The town-wide ban on writing implements has turned into a major problem now that no one in Night Vale can speak. 

—

At first, he thinks the studio is empty. A song is playing right now, tonight’s weather, so Cecil could have stepped out for a moment. No—there’s a man in the recording booth. _Is_ there a man in the recording booth? He’s very hard to make out, even under the harsh fluorescent lights. Carlos is shocked to discover that he can’t tell, looking at him, if this is Cecil. The man is neither short nor tall, neither fat nor thin, neither dark nor pale, and _why can’t he remember what Cecil looks like?_ But then the man turns, and meets his eyes, and of course it’s Cecil. Who else would it be? Only … Carlos hadn’t quite realized just how much he defined Cecil by his voice. Sure, if he’d been asked to describe him, he’d have started with the voice, but he’d have moved on to … well, Cecil has facial features, and hair, and—

Carlos is looking right at Cecil, and he can’t describe what he looks like.

Cecil grasps his hands, tightly, and it feels like he’s holding on for dear life. And Carlos pulls Cecil close, wraps his arms around him, and thinks. Because Cecil was supposed to be the normal one—well, as normal as anyone could be in Night Vale. He believed in impossible things and questioned the existence of mountains, but he didn’t have two heads, wasn’t a five-headed dragon—he was _human_. It was Cecil—not the Secret Police, not the Mayor, not the City Council—who took care of the town, who kept it as _normal_ a town as Night Vale possibly could be. How could Cecil be anything other than normal himself?

Except … "the Voice of Night Vale" isn’t just a job description, is it?

Even now, Cecil is very difficult to see. Carlos has seen optical illusions, where if you look at a picture just the right way, part of it disappears. This is like that, except the other way around. He has to keep Cecil very firmly in focus in order to see him at all. It’s not like the general vagueness of the man in the tan jacket, it’s more than that, it’s like Cecil is hovering on the very edge of existence.

Because he can’t speak? No, that’s not quite right, Carlos thinks. _No one_ in Night Vale can speak today, but the rest of them are all still here. It’s like … whatever mysterious force had stolen the town’s voices was also, quite literally, stealing the town’s Voice.

Logically, that makes no sense. But nothing about this situation makes sense, and that in itself is kind of standard. Carlos can … he can figure out what it means for _him_ , that Cecil’s not quite human, or maybe more than human, later. After the crisis is averted.

— 

 _Ping!_ His phone is startlingly loud even against the song playing over the speakers. He pulls away from Cecil and takes it from his pocket.

 _Found a lead_ , his assistant had texted.

 _Good, hurry,_ he replies. _It’s doing something strange to Cecil._

_To who?_

What did she mean, to who? Carlos looks back at what he’d texted her to see what could possibly be confusing and … that’s weird. Does he even know a Cecil? Certainly not here in Night Vale.

 _Nevermind,_ he texts. _Just hurry._

 _We’re on it,_ she sends back. He wonders who “we” is—whoever gave her the lead, perhaps. As he puts his phone back in his pocket, something brushes his hand. It feels like a human touch, but aside from himself, the studio is empty. He looks around, just to be sure—no, definitely empty. And then there’s a very distinct sensation of a hand on his shoulder. Carlos shudders and backs out of the studio, hastily shutting the door behind him. Weird stuff happens at the radio station sometimes, and right now he doesn’t want to deal with anything other than the main problem of the day. Come to think of it…what had even brought him to the radio station in the first place?

The station intern is looking down at a sheet of paper, pen in hand. Apparently she’d finally found an illegal writing utensil, but her brow is furrowed, like she doesn’t understand what she wrote. Carlos leans over to take a look. All it says is _CECIL?_ He shrugs, but—that name can’t be a coincidence, can it? The intern shrugs back in reply and then—her purse and keys already in hand—points toward the Station Management door to indicate why she’s taking off. Carlos doesn’t blame her—behind the frosted glass window, there’s a writhing void of pure darkness. He should get out of here, get back to his lab, too, he thinks, as the door swings shut behind Intern Sam.

— 

Abruptly, the weather cuts out. That _never_ happens mid-song. Whoever, _whatever_ is in the studio, it’s—a man’s voice begins speaking. It’s just a list of random words, an advertisement of some sort, but it’s the most beautiful voice Carlos has ever heard, and he feels like he should recognize it. Feels like he knows it intimately. _That’s_ the reason he came to the station, something to do with that voice. _That’s the Voice of Night Vale_ , he thinks, and he doesn’t know what that means, and then, _that’s Cecil_.

He’s back in the studio before he realizes what he’s doing, and Cecil’s there, sitting in the recording booth’s chair, his face held in his hands. Carlos reaches out, gently, and Cecil looks up at him, and Carlos doesn’t know an appropriate hand gesture to signal _I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry_ , so he bends down and kisses him instead.

If this were a fairy tale, the spell would be broken, but Cecil is still on the edge of reality, still hard to keep in focus. Carlos doesn’t know if he can ever forgive himself for forgetting Cecil today. He doesn’t know how to say _I won’t let go, won’t let you out of my sight, not until this is over_ other than to just _do_ that and hope that Cecil still trusts him.

Somehow they end up on the floor together, just holding each other, and it turns out that it doesn’t matter that they can’t speak, because there’s nothing they need to say. And Carlos thinks that if true love can’t break the spell, it can at least hold it off, because he’s not in love with the Voice of Night Vale, he’s in love with _this man_. And that’s something they—whoever _they_ are—can’t take away.

And then there’s a great _sigh_ , and it feels like he’s let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. And Cecil says, “You came back.”

— 

His phone pings again, and even though Cecil’s fully real now, Carlos has a hard time pulling his eyes away. _We got them,_ his assistant texted. _Everything should be good now. Just to be on the safe side though you might want to scream a bit._ He shows the text to Cecil, and they both try to scream, they really do, but the best they can manage is a joyful yell, which quickly turns to joyful laughter, which quickly turns to silence as they fall into each other’s arms again.

— 

 _Ladies and gentlemen, it’s past our scheduled broadcast hour, but it seems that Station Management is liable to_ do something _if I don’t come on the air. Hear my voice, Night Vale—I am here with you again._ We _are here. Speak! Shout! Scream, laugh, cry. Hear yourselves, and hear each other._

_Listeners, you may have seen four strangers in town today, men who did not walk upon the ground but rather (as my dear Carlos’ new assistant described it) “looked like they were riding invisible Segways.” They are gone now, and may I say, Tamika Flynn (who, you may recall, has read a great many books) is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in our town._

_Word is coming in that five residents were found dead with their hearts cut out of their chests. Uncommonly for Night Vale, they did not die screaming, or at least, not out loud._

_You may not wish to sleep tonight, and listeners, the City Council has lifted the citywide ban on insomnia for this night only. So stay up! Talk. Perhaps you simply wish to fill the silence, or perhaps today has made you realize that there are things you’ve left unsaid for far too long. Carlos is here with me at the station, and listeners, I hope that you, too, have someone to share your voice with as I leave you tonight._

_Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight._

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the Buffy episode "Hush" — I tried to make it so it would be obvious if you'd seen the show, but wouldn't get in the way or be confusing if you hadn't.


End file.
